


thou climb'st the skies

by diogcnes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, No Dialogue, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Reichenbach, well some dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diogcnes/pseuds/diogcnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies!</i><br/><i>How silently, and with how wan a face!</i><br/><i>What! may it be that even in heavenly place</i><br/><i>That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?</i><br/>(Sir Philip Sidney)</p><p>"I don't want anything to do with you." Oh but I do, I do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thou climb'st the skies

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to Gaby. Happy Belated Valentine's Day, darling. 
> 
> Disclaimer: these characters are not mine.

Sherlock Holmes’ grave is the best tended grave in London. John Watson comes every week to clean it, to change the water, and to lay down narcissus. He always comes before the flowers die. It's the same every visit, flowers and then a little speech. Sometimes he laughs and sometimes he yells, but always, there are tears in his eyes.

John talks in the wrong tense for a long time. It’s the one indulgence he’ll allow himself.

He will do anything not to remember. He takes pains not to pass by Bart’s and will always take the longer way around. He moves out of Baker Street at record breaking speed because it doesn’t feel right to live there anymore. Not without Sherlock. 

Everybody’s sorry. Sorry for him, sorry for Sherlock. He hates it. He wishes they’d stop. At the funeral, the condolences came by the hundreds, the flowers by the thousands. Where are they all now? Only a few flowers stand by Sherlock’s grave and they are John’s. 

He was, after all, the only one. 

—

His therapist decides he needs to move on. After a while, he convinces himself that it was his decision too. 

—

Her name is Mary. She makes him forget.

She’s lost someone too. They bond over death. They’re first class mourners, the both of them. It’s a working relationship. John looks the other way when Mary mourns and she does the same for John. She doesn’t ask questions. John loves her for it. 

Her hair is dark and she’s taller than John by half of an inch. She laughs at John’s jokes. They get dinner every Tuesday. It’s calm and generic and domestic. He tells himself that this is enough. It is more than enough.

No matter how many times she corrects him, her tea is always black with two sugars. There are no bulletholes in the wall or dead body parts in the refrigerator. Every surface is devoid of experiments. Appliances are used properly and safely. It is the opposite of Baker Street. It’s the farthest from John’s old life as possible. It's astonishingly mind numbing.

John tells his therapist. She’s happy for him, for the both of them. 

—

Weeds begin growing around Sherlock’s grave. The flowers begin to wilt. 

—

Mary wants them to write their own vows. John agrees because a relationship means compromise or something like that. He realizes that he’s been compromising for a long time. He figures that compromising means love, in a strange sort of way. Sherlock never wanted him to because John deserved better and also these women are idiots and come to the crime scene, it’s urgent and I need you. 

He sits in front of an empty page. It’s the first time in ages. Was it always this hard?

John writes. He writes about unconditional love. A fleeting memory, a loving touch. He writes about the stars and the solar system. He writes about his heart and sentiment and chemical defects and god, all of this. He writes, for hours. 

And every single sentence ends with Sherlock. 

—

There is no more screaming at the grave. Only silence.

—

Sherlock has a knack for making everyone around him go mad. His return is no different. There is shouting and throwing and misuse of illegal firearms. John has missed this but decides not to say so.

Do you love her? he asks. 

John leaves without answering. The bastard can deduce that for himself.

—

John buys flowers the day after. This time, they aren’t for a grave. Mary smiles and kisses him on the cheek. 

—

Mary wants to know if Sherlock is coming to the wedding. John says no. He delivers an invitation to Baker Street anyway. Mary sets aside a place on the seating chart.

They don’t see Sherlock until the wedding day. He waves to John when he takes his place at the altar. His eyes soften when he sees Mary walk down the aisle. He smiles at the right times in the ceremony and smirks at the pastor’s jokes. 

It’s unsettling. John doesn’t like it at all, he wants Sherlock to frown and to make fun of John’s vows and to deduce every single guest within an inch of their life. Sherlock does not do any of these things. 

People change, they say. No, they don’t. Not Sherlock. Not for John. 

—

Someone steals the vase from Sherlock’s grave. There is nobody there to notice.

—

The next time John sees Sherlock, he deduces Mary’s pregnancy. John is too busy staring at the track marks on his arms. Sherlock catches him staring and hurriedly pulls down his sleeve. It’s too late, John already knows. He doesn’t know if his opinion on the subject will make a difference but decides that he's disappointed anyway. He wonders if Sherlock can tell. 

He sits in his chair and kisses Mrs. Hudson on the cheek. It’s been years. It almost feels like home.

Sherlock offers him tea. John declines. They sit across from one another. The rest of the conversation is continued silently.

_I don’t need your help._

_I wasn’t offering._

John masks whatever pity he has because Sherlock wouldn’t want to see it. Sherlock bites back deductions about Mary’s character because John wouldn’t approve. 

—

John drives in the direction of the cemetery. He hesitates as he approaches the grave. He turns around and goes home.

—

They name the baby after one of Mary’s relatives. John feels fulfilled for the first time in years. 

Mycroft calls. John doesn’t want to know how he got ahold of their address. What he does want to know is how Sherlock is doing. He bites his tongue before he can say another word. Mycroft congratulates them and graces their flat with his approval. John rolls his eyes. Mycroft raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Mary goes to make tea. 

He’s suffering, Mycroft says. John responds with silence. He lets his anger get the better of him. John wants absolutely nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. If he thinks that he can come back to London unannounced and expect John to start solving bloody crimes with him again, he’s not any smarter than the rest of the human population. 

Mycroft says it’s not like him to hold a grudge. John doubts that Mycroft knows what John is really like. Mycroft leaves without his tea. 

Mary asks who he was. 

An enemy, John jokes.

Mary doesn’t laugh. 

—

There is overgrowth around the grave. The granite no longer shines.

—

Stage Two, the doctor says. John takes a shaky breath and Mary reaches for his hand. 

Their daughter doesn’t understand. She cries out for her mother every night. 

Mary gets the treatment that they can’t afford. Whenever John visits, she assures him that she’s getting better. Sometimes he’ll bring the baby and Mary will hold her. They are happy for a short while. But John sees through all of it.

He knows that her cells are deteriorating and that they are killing her from the inside out. He knows that the radiation is killing the cancerous cells and the healthy cells which means there’s a chance she’ll get sick again afterwards. He knows she has a five percent chance of survival and that her chances of remission shrink with every day she sits in that hospital bed. 

She gets the newest treatment quicker than expected and her name seems to jump to the top of waiting lists. John is sure that a certain minor government official has something to do with it. 

Whenever he’s been sitting too long in the hospital room, John’s thoughts drift to Sherlock. His wife is dying in front of him and all he can do is think of Sherlock bloody Holmes. He switches to thinking about how much of a failure he is.

—

There is a new grave. He doesn’t lay down flowers and his first visit becomes his last.

—

Time passes and his daughter grows. Everything becomes blurred. John’s hopes of reconciliation dwindle with every passing day. 

He feels empty. Sometimes he thinks about what it would be like to go back, to Sherlock Holmes and to Baker Street. He'll hear a cry from the nursery and change his mind.

Sherlock fades into the background. 

He shifts his attention to his daughter. John sees her go off with boyfriends and then to university and then he gives her up to the rest of the world. Sometimes they talk about about her mother. John tells her the story of how they met, their wedding, and her eventual birth. 

They have a good life together. She takes mostly after Mary but she has John's blue eyes and the same sad smile. And John thinks that it is enough. 

When she is all grown up, she decides to visit her mother's grave, alone. It does not affect her like she had hoped it would. 

The grave marker is the only thing she’ll ever know of her mother. She won’t know Mary’s smile or her unrelenting patience or the way she hummed songs whenever she hoovered. He wishes he could change that. 

She makes plans to go off to some far off country. She wants to be free. She sends postcards and packages. She so desperately wants to change the world. John can’t help his overwhelming pride. Maybe he isn’t such a failure after all.

She would’ve loved Sherlock, she takes after him in that way too. 

—

John visits Sherlock’s grave. He lets a tear escape his eye and begins to talk. 

—

He meets up with Mike Stamford. Mike jokes about how old they both are. John laughs along and makes a few jokes of his own. John is distant and Mike notices. They both know why he’s really there. 

Mike tells him about Sherlock. Apparently, he’s done well for himself but continues to be a recluse. Lots of high profile cases, nothing anywhere near what he and John did. He’s currently living between Baker Street and a cottage in Sussex. He keeps bees. Mike starts to talk about his constant experimentation with drugs but catches himself and stops out of respect for John. 

John nods. He changes the subject. 

—

John buys a new vase.

—

John’s arthritis get worse. His bones could play a symphony and his heartbeat is irregular. John's shoulder can tell if it's going to rain. 

His daughter doesn’t understand why he feels the need to go out every single day. She says he’s asking for a death sentence, if only she knew. 

She wants him to move on. John shakes his head no, it’s not her decision to make. It never was. 

John has never been a creature of habit but now he goes out to Sherlock’s grave more often than ever. The flowers are always fresh and the water always clean. The inscription reads clearly. John’s speeches are eloquent and reminiscent of who they once were. Together; against the rest of the world. 

And if he sometimes sees a tall shadow against the trees, he doesn’t say a word. 

—

His grave reads: John Watson, beloved husband, loving father, lifelong friend. 

It is the best tended grave in London. Sherlock Holmes makes sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in all of three days. All mistakes are mine.
> 
> Track marks are lines of bruised needle holes on people's arms, caused by constant drug use which leads to scarring and toxin buildup.
> 
> Kudos and comments are much appreciated. Thanks for the love!


End file.
